nown even in the present
day, might not have treated Selwyn less harshly for what was done under
the influence of wine? To this we are inclined to reply, that no
punishment is too severe for profanation; and that drunkenness is not an
excuse, but an aggravation. Selwyn threatened to appeal, and took advice
on the matter. This, as usual, was vain. Many an expelled man, more
unjustly treated than Selwyn, has talked of appeal in vain. Appeal to
whom? To what? Appeal against men who never acknowledge themselves
wrong, and who, to maintain that they are right, will listen to evidence
which they can see is contradictory, and which they know to be
worthless! An appeal from an Oxford decision is as hopeless in the
present day as it was in Selwyn's. He wisely left it alone, but less
wisely insisted on reappearing in Oxford, against the advice of all his
friends, whose characters were lost if the ostracised man were seen
among them.

From this time he entered upon his 'profession,' that of a wit, gambler,
club-lounger, and man about town; for these many characters are all
mixed in the one which is generally called 'a wit.' Let us remember that
he was good-hearted, and not ill-intentioned, though imbued with the
false ideas of his day. He was not a great man, but a great wit.

The localities in which the trade of wit was plied were, then, the
clubs, and the drawing-rooms of fashionable beauties. The former were in
Selwyn's youth still limited in the number of their members, thirty
constituting a large club; and as the subscribers were all known to one
another, presented an admirable field for display of mental powers in
conversation. In fact, the early clubs were nothing more than
dining-societies, precisely the same in theory as our breakfasting
arrangements at Oxford, which were every whit as exclusive, though not
balloted for. The ballot, however, and the principle of a single black
ball suffering to negative an election were not only, under such
circumstances, excusable, but even necessary for the actual preservation
of peace. Of course, in a succession of dinner-parties, if any two
members were at all opposed to one other, the awkwardness would be
intolerable. In the present day, two men may belong to the same club and
scarcely meet even on the stairs, oftener than once or twice in a
season.

Gradually, however, in the place of the 'feast of reason and flow of
soul' and wine, instead of the evenings spent in toasting, talk